Swear
by naggeluide
Summary: Toph grew up in the Earth Rumble, and Zuko went through adolescence at sea. Neither of them are shy about using profanity. Cross-posted from AO3.
1. Chapter 1

"Sozin's BALLS!" the Fire Prince yells, his foot not quite fast enough to avoid slipping into one of the cracks that have been branching out into the earth under his feet like lightning.

Toph cackles maniacally, closing the earth to trap her prey. "That's exactly where you come from, ashy little shitbender!"

Zuko is extracting his leg as quickly as possible to resume his dance over the ever-changing earth to get within short blasting range, but it's not completely clear of the surface by the time the earth is healed. There's a distinct popping sound as the foot and leg disagree about their relative angle and the ankle ligaments lose the fight. The pain will probably come later, Zuko knows, but for now he's just really. Fucking. ANNOYED.

As he punches a small concussive blast at the ground, blasting out his foot and a good chunk of earth with it, he shares that annoyance with Toph loudly, insulting badger moles (since she wouldn't give two shits if he insulted her real family) and Earth Kingdom animals in general, and finishing with a colourful comparison of herself with said creatures, accompanied by a sweeping fire sheet flung out of his injured foot as he rolls with the force of his initial blast.

Toph, naturally, takes advantage of the fact that his hands are the only thing supporting him and raises the patch of earth he's balancing on ten meters into the air. Zuko has to twist and crash onto his knees to keep from shooting straight over the edge (Azula, he thinks, would have made a graceful light-footed landing on her toes); he manages to form a quick fire whip that cracks the rock beside her, and either the heat or the small shower of debris makes her lose her form for a moment. Toph is none too pleased about this, and starts calling the Fire Nation Royals a bunch of inbreds, and "THAT WAS ONE TIME, A THOUSAND YEARS AGO", Zuko yells, and why do the other nation's history books like to bring that up so much, instead of the hundreds of perfectly normal marriages?

He's too distracted to be truly mad though, because he's sliding down the earth column balanced with his good leg under him and his bad one in front as the outrigger and brake, and it hurts like hell to put enough pressure on his front foot to keep from flying off the column prematurely. It's only a few seconds before he's able to fling his body away (good thing too, as Toph has recovered her balance and some medium-sized boulders are hurtling towards him now), tuck into a pike and bend the largest fireballs he could muster out the bottoms of his feet before crashing to the ground in what would have been a decent landing had he possessed two legs capable of being landed on. His weak ankle protests with a searing pain and he's able to turn his undignified crumple-to-the-ground into a sort-of roll. "Son of a water witch!" he yells, pissed that he's going to have to continue the match on one leg now, as if it wasn't hard enough dodging the ever-changing surface already.

At least he's scored a small victory; Toph is on the move now too, either bored of bending at him from a single location or actually trying to get out of range before he can do some real damage. He presses the advantage with a series of concussive blasts to the ground beneath her feet, and now she's the one dancing and creatively cussing out every single one of his recent ancestors. She finds her root for a split second, and that's all it takes for her to gather the earth under her into a huge ball and charge after Zuko like Aang on an air scooter.

Zuko executes another one-legged dive-roll (he's got to find a better way of getting around on one leg) to avoid being kneaded into the earth-ball like so much dough; he manages to come up to standing this time and he's near enough to the cliff face separating their impromptu sparring arena from the rest of the air temple buildings that he can start flinging himself up the wall. Toph is breaking off holds almost as soon as he can reach them, and if the slight delay is due to her holding back and not her blindness, he never wants to go against her in a real fight. A particularly much-needed hold goes sailing past his ear, which leads to a loud string of his best barbs from his seafaring days, mostly graphic descriptions of what the ocean spirits could go do to themselves, before his flailing hand manages to find another grip. He's still enjoying the expletives rolling off his tongue when he swings himself over the edge, feet kicking fire at the ever-growing earth-ball the blind bender is riding towards him, when he comes face-to-face with an unusually white-faced waterbender.

…."Oh, shit", is all he can say as the words dry up in his throat and now he's pretty sure he's got two very powerful benders wanting to kill him; thankfully, Katara seems too scandalised to do anything about it at the moment, and he only has a second to get into his stance anyway because Toph's giant earth-ball has reached the height of the cliff-top and she's in a suit of rock-armor launching herself and a small army of rocks at him. Zuko inhales, waits for it, and exhales, thrusting his arms wide. A dome of flame explodes outwards, too quickly to burn but the sheer force of it shatters the rocks into dust. For a moment, all sight and sound is lost in a fine grey cloud, perfectly spherical, that envelops the three benders.

—

Aang felt and heard that the blast was bigger than most of what had been going on before; he immediately stopped his inspection of Appa's teeth to check it out. "I'll be back to check on the rest of those pearly whites!" he grinned as he launched his glider on the way out; he knew Zuko and Toph were supposed to be discussing ways Earth- and Fire-bending could be wielded together in a fight - he should have known that they were both better with actions than with words.

A strange grey dust cloud hovered over the lower terrace. Aang tasted powdered limestone as he sailed down into range of two not-so-muffled voices.

"Yield, you little shit-eating earthworm!" Aang saw a somewhat larger form covered in grey dust holding a flame-dagger at the throat of a somewhat smaller form covered in grey dust.

"You yield, stubborn fucking torch-up-the-ass!" Upon closer inspection, Aang saw a set of sharp stone spikes had grown perilously close to the larger form's ribcage. He was, however, too distracted by the torrents of abuse the earthbender and firebender were hurling at each other. Aang hadn't heard half the words they used before, and from the disturbing images they conjured to his mind he wasn't sure he wanted to know. He felt the tips of his ears growing red, and then the rest of his ears, and he wished he could turn his ears off, this was getting extremely uncomfortable and while it didn't look like Zuko and Toph were about to kill each other, it sounded like they already had and were now gleefully dancing on each other's graves, pissing on the ancestor's tablets for good measure. Aang knew that his job as the Avatar was to maintain peace, but honestly all he wanted to do was earthbend himself a hole deep, deep underground where these two were well out of earshot.

Suddenly, another voice broke through the verbal cesspool. "SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

Aang froze. Zuko froze. Toph froze. Katara, covered in dust and looking very, very angry, stood up and strode towards the pair on the ground. "I don't know where you learned all those horrible things - " ("Earth Rumble", squeaked Toph, and "Fire Navy", whispered Zuko) - "but YOU," she pointed at Zuko, who quickly extinguished his flame dagger, "are NEVER going to say those things again, especially in combination with anything to do with water, the Water Tribes, or the ocean, and YOU," she turned to Toph, who let her rock points melt away, "had better go back to the normal vocabulary of a polite young adult or SO HELP ME you will never get a thirteenth birthday."

Aang let out a sigh of relief he hadn't known he'd been holding. "Thank you, Katara." It would be a while before he could resume his state of child-like innocence, he knew, but at least now it stood a chance.

Zuko and Toph got off of each other and pretended to be busy dusting themselves off. Finally, the firebender cleared his throat awkwardly. "I'm sorry that you had to hear that, Katara."

Toph nodded. "Yeah, that's kind of why we don't invite you to fight with us, Sugar Queen. Trash talk is a big part of the game and you … well, you're just so not-trashy?"

Katara grabbed the sides of her head and groaned. "What I don't understand," she said, forcing the words through her teeth, "is how you two are the ones raised by the nobility and Aang, Sokka and I are the peasants - " ("You said it, not me," Zuko couldn't resist goading her, and got a water-slap in the face for his trouble) - "and we are the ones who know not to go around calling our FRIENDS and ALLIES horrible things like that."

"We're sorry, Katara," Toph said. "I don't really think he's a - " Aang covered his ears and sang the Sky Bison Ballad in his head, very loudly, until Toph's lips finally stopped moving a whole verse later.

"It's just a way of letting off steam. Remembering the good ol' days in the Rumble ring," Toph finished her explanation.

"My ship's crew wouldn't let me spar with them until I could take and give a heckle as good as they could," Zuko offered, and Toph appreciated that it was mostly a lie. She was sure he could have and had in fact ordered them to do whatever he wanted, but it was nice that he was trying to get Katara to go easy on them. "We won't do it again," he added, managing to sound not even a bit sullen or angry as he said it. That too, was of course a lie, Toph knew.

Aang cleared his throat. "I'm glad to hear that," he said, sounding a bit dazed. "It's probably going to take me a week of meditation to purify my chi after hearing all of what you said before though. Please don't ever speak like that in training. Or anywhere I can hear you, actually."

The others watched as the young monk took off on his glider, and if his flying looked a little shakier than usual none of them mentioned it.

Toph apologetically bent the dust and dirt out of their clothes, and suggested that she and Zuko go prepare the midday meal.

"Thank you, Toph. That's a wonderful idea," Katara said, shaking her head as she watched the two stand up and head towards the temple, Toph with a penitent weight to her step and Zuko limping regretfully.

Wait, limping?

"Zuko, what's wrong with your foot?" she called.

The Fire Prince's back stiffened. "It's fine," he replied, although his voice lacked its usual abrasiveness, probably because he was trying to avoid antagonising her further.

"You're injured. Let me look at it."

"I said it's fine," Zuko repeated in his usual tone, and Katara had had enough.

"Sit THE FUCK down, you stubborn-assed, dog-lizard faced ASH-MAKER, and let me look at your foot!"

Zuko stopped, blinked, turned around, and hastily sat down once he'd glimpsed Katara's face.

She stormed over to him and he winced in anticipation, leg outstretched. Her hands were still steady, despite her obvious anger, and Zuko was tempted to relax as the healing water smoothed away the swelling and knitted the damaged ligaments back together. The practiced rhythm of her bending movements seemed to calm Katara too, and by the time she was done the scowl had changed to a disapproving gaze.

"There," she announced, rising to her feet. "And you're both on cooking and cleanup duty for the next week. The Duke will supervise you so I'm going to know if anything uncivil comes out of those potty-mouths of yours."

Zuko rose and gave her his best court bow (though he didn't think she'd spot the difference from a normal Fire Nation greeting) and Toph followed suit.

"Sorry, Katara," the blind bender said.

"Thanks for healing my foot, Katara," added Zuko, before they tuned to double-time it to the campfire.

Once they were out of earshot, Toph turned to her companion excitedly. "I think it worked!"

The corner of Zuko's mouth lifted and he let out a small snort that in non-fugitives might have been a peal of laughter. "I bet that's the first time she's said 'fuck'. But the second time around it had some feeling behind it."

"Well, like I said. Better to give her a chance to let it all out. Now that she's gotten to yell some nasty shit at you she might not feel the need to mutter under her breath every time you enter a room."

Zuko shrugged. "I hope so." His good eye narrowed at the earthbender as he changed his tone. "So, do you think she'll be ready in a few years to join our underground Element Rumble?"

Toph laughed. "Ice Queen's never gonna be ready for that level of trash talk. And if Aang can ever match what Katara gave out today, I'll wear shoes for the rest of my life."

Zuko huffed. "It's not going to be much of an Element Rumble with only Fire and Earth."

"Well, I'm sure in a dozen years or so some of the Northern waterbenders might want to join in."

"It would still need a better name, and maybe even some rules …"

"Rules! Rules are for pussies. If you put rules then it just becomes some stupid sport …"

Perched high above the lower terrace, Sokka watched the pair head back inside. He wished he had his moustache and beard - or even just the moustache - to give weight to his best evil cackle. People forgot about Sokka, but he was the Idea Guy, and sometimes he could also be the Plan Guy who didn't tell anyone about his plans. Such as this beauty, which really was so easy, just a few suggestions in the right ears and a good read on his companions. Now Zuko had a friend, Katara had a cathartic shouting session that should keep her from ranting about Zuko to Sokka for at least a day or two, Operation Aang Meets World had progressed (a bit too far, Sokka would admit; even he hadn't imagined the types of profanities the highborns were capable of) and, best of all, Sokka wouldn't have to help around the kitchen for an entire week!

Sokka gave his imaginary moustache one last twirl and leaped off his ledge; this was going to be a good week.


	2. Chapter 2

_Shortly after the events of The Search, our favorite troublemakers are at it again._

Everyone in the royal palace agreed that if they found Zuko, son of Ursa and Ozai, on his knees begging for mercy from one of his parents, the parent in question wouldn't be his mother. Yet that was exactly what was happening in the Agni Kai arena early that morning, and the few guards within hearing distance didn't know where to look.

"Should we wake up the doctor? Just in case?" Guard captain Aki asked his lieutenant out of the corner of his mouth.

Lieutenant Kimiko, who had transferred to the palace after the war, looked puzzled. "Why would they need a doctor? Do you think the Fire Lord is sick?"

"Never mind," Captain Aki sighed. He hadn't seen much of the Lady Ursa back when she was Princess, but violence ran in this particular branch of the royal family so the common agreement that ten years ago she had been the gentle one could be extremely relative.

In the end, no doctor was necessary, and the Guard were under strict orders not to let the eighteen-year-old ruler of their nation off the premises for a week. Fire Lord Zuko was grounded.

\- Some minutes prior -

"...and don't even get me started on that asshat Admiral Feng. If that Tui-and-La-damned, shirshu-faced sorry excuse for a naval officer even knows the difference between takking and jibbing I'll straight up fucking abdicate."

Toph hoped that Zuko would tire of the rapid string of fireballs he was punching at her soon, because she was straight up fucking _bored_ and also not a little pissed that Zuko had been bitching about his cabinet since the match started, and nothing she'd said (and she'd really pulled out all the stops and even gone after his honor) could deter him from that topic. "Your baby sister takes bigger shits than komodo-rhinos," she tried half-heartedly as she pushed her rock shield outwards in an attempt to knock him down.

Neither action deterred Zuko, although he was now comparing the education minister to the symptoms of a particularly disgusting variety of stomach bug, while casually vaulting over the wall and kicking a spiral of flame at Toph in the process. Toph ducked and widened her stance, determined to pin down the firebender and actually beat the living shit out of him until he decided to man up and _pay attention to her_. Once any one of his toes finally hit solid ground.

A vibration echoed through her earthbending sense. Toph brought her extended arms together over her head and clamped her big toes down. Earth roared and collapsed into a slick-sided ravine. The tirade about the minister stopped. Toph's ears would have sighed in relief if they could have, and she smirked. Dust started billowing out of the crevasse and highlighted - well, shit, Sparky had gotten _good_. Because it was unthinkable that Toph had gotten predictable, and even though everyone now agreed that Zuko was, in fact, not as stupid as he could have been, two years ago he definitely would been at the bottom of the ravine after a bone-rattling drop and not where he currently was, balanced in-motion on the very edge with one hand and the assistance of a flame jet, cartwheeling clear with a disturbing resemblance to a pink-loving acrobat-turned-Kyoshi-warrior. The following somersault made it clear that the rumors of how the now single Fire Lord spent his time with his not unattractive all-female bodyguard contingent were entirely too interesting for someone who could estimate budget deficits as quickly and accurately as Zuko.

But there was a mistake; he overbalanced and rolled onto his back, and oh, how Toph was going to make him _pay_ for that. She spun her wide stance back into a fearsome lunge and drove her fist down to the earth. "Enjoy your breakfast, you slippery-assed fire ferret!" she crowed, sending a row of spiked rocks racing towards him.

Fire crackled as Zuko somehow spun around on his back and a superheated twist of flame pulverized her attack, and even the backup row she'd sent not a second later. Debris flew back at her, and she halted it in midair, but one rock got through because she'd had to leap out of the way of the scorching hot air that threatened to sear the breath out of her lungs and her stance was only ninety-nine point nine percent set because there was a sharp pebble that had lodged itself between two of her toes…

The rock slammed into her side, taking Toph's breath away with it.

" ... Pomp-and-nonsense-filled, cringeworthy, inaccurate as fuck history curriculum!" Zuko continued his rant where he'd left off, not even acknowledging the fact that he'd just nailed her in the ribs with her own rock. And it was going to _bruise_.

Toph was going to _flatten_ the fucker, and then give his two-dimensional corpse to the court painter as a model for the final portrait of Fire Lord Zuko, May He Burn In Hell, Pissed Off The Greatest Earthbender Of All Time, Got What Was Coming To Him.

Toph pulled pillars of earth out of the arena floor, split them in half and sent the top halves smashing down into any space between them which might contain the frantically dodging firebender. "Stop running, you annoying, blood-sucking _mosquito-tick_!" she hollered, ineffectively. She decided to take a page out of his ex-girlfriend's book and try skewering him with something pointy instead, if he was going to flit about like a spirits-damned airbender. Toph reached out and wrenched the nearest piece of metal off the column it was decorating and started shaping it into little knives in mid-air, aiming now for the holes between her chomping earth-teeth.

She was rewarded with a yelp, and _finally_ a litany of curses directed her way, because apparently knives were cheating since she never let him use his swords when they sparred, and damn it he wasn't wearing a shirt so that had been his actual hipbone she'd almost staked to the ground. Toph didn't feel remotely bad for his poor decision-making, although it was midsummer and hot as Sozin's fiery comet balls so it wasn't like she was wearing much either, but more concerning now than their athletic wear choices was the fact that most of her flying blades had hit the stone columns and _bent_ instead of embedding into the earth like any self-respecting high-velocity knife ought to do.

"Why is the only metal around here fucking gold? That's a weak-ass metal!" Toph shouted in fury.

Sparky laughed and flung a handful of weak-ass blades in her direction, followed by the usual barrage of fireballs. "Makes sense that the Bei Fongs' favorite metal would be a soft as fuck, lame-ass metal!"

All of the blades flew wide - to be expected, Toph supposed, since most of them weren't even flat anymore - and she summoned a line of boulders to kick at Zuko's stupid head as he growled in frustration, letting loose a foul stream of epithets about earthbenders' sexual preferences.

"Zuko!" a horrified gasp broke into the torrent of invectives. A distinctly female, clearly very-disappointed-in-you, I-am-ashamed-to-call-you-my-son, _mom_ voice.

The Lady Ursa stood at the edge of the arena, frozen in shock.

Silence fell. Dust settled.

Sparky's heart rate and breath patterns careened out of control.

Toph wiggled her little toe and let the earth swallow her.

A frantic pounding on her hiding spot ensued. "Toph. Toph, let me in, please, get me out of here!" Zuko's whisper was desperate.

"I'll do anything, I swear, hell, I'll outlaw shoes in the colonies if you just_ let me in_," he continued, and Toph had had enough.

"No!" she yelled, although the earth muffled her voice considerably. "You're being a shitty friend and I'm not going to help you out because all you do these days is bitch about your problems and if you only _paid attention to me_ for a damn minute you might realize that you have people in your life who want to come to you for advice because they're you're actual _friends_ and not because they fucking _work for you_."

The pounding stopped. Through the earth above her, Toph could feel the slump in Zuko's posture and the shaky breath he let out.

"Shit, Toph, I'm sorry," came his unhappy voice. The panic in his heartbeat had smoothed out, but his breath control was still an upset wreck. He couldn't firebend now if he tried. "You're right. No friend with honor should behave like that. I - fuck. I'm going to make things right." Toph wouldn't have used those exact words herself, but if a firebender was bringing their honor into the issue that was about the sincerest apology she would ever get.

Toph felt his heartbeat start pounding again as he stood and turned to face his mother. "Mom, I - I have no excuse." Toph felt him fall to his knees and touch his forehead to the ground in respect. "I'm sorry for disappointing you, Mom. Please, forgive me."

Holy hell, Toph thought as she winced even under the muffling layer of earth over her head. She had no idea that the Lady Ursa could yell _that loud_.

On a nearby wooden rooftop, Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe nearly died an inglorious death by choking on his own suppressed laughter. He was just glad he'd had an opportunity to see the firebender's face before the tears of mirth had clouded his vision.

Undignified snorts were still making it out past his hands which were clamped over his mouth a full minute later. As much as he would love to let loose, this arena was damn echoey, and even with all the shouting going on below someone was going to notice him if he started laughing.

Sokka really hadn't counted on his first assignment as a White Lotus initiate being so much damn _fun_. Grand Lotus Uncle - that is to say, Grand Lotus Iroh had been rightfully concerned about what international incidents might arise if the young Fire Lord was closeted in a room with a powder-keg mix of administrators who'd never been to sea and experienced naval officers to argue about post-war boundaries of international waters as he was scheduled to do ten days from now. The Order's proposed solutions had ranged from a powerful laxative to a spirit-world hunt for the late Admiral Zhao, but Sokka, as the resident Water Tribe Genius, no offense to Grandpakku but the smart-genes had come from Gran-gran's side, had proposed this beautiful solution which would ensure that if any sailor was going to loose his shit and start cussing out the landlubbers, it wouldn't be Zuko.

Sokka loved this job, with its convoluted plans, co-workers that supported his blossoming talent as a painter, and classes in secret-agent poetry writing. He was even starting to gain an appreciation for Pai Sho!

The Royal Guard now knew where Zuko had gotten his very impressive set of lungs, and it hadn't been from his father. A great deal of noise, not a few tears, and a lot of begging later, both from a terrified Fire Lord and an earthbender willing to do absolutely anything to keep a messenger hawk to her parents and former etiquette teachers on the roost, and the early morning calm was once more restored.

Captain Aki, however, was far from calm despite his outward expression. The amount of work that it would take to keep the Fire Lord in if he didn't want to be was monumental; in the first six months of his reign half of the guard were convinced that their new ruler was actually a ghost who could appear and disappear at will. Once they'd all been properly trained to look up as well as left, right, front and back, the number of times they'd lost track of him had decreased significantly, but still remained embarrassingly above zero.

"My deepest apologies, Captain Aki," Lady Ursa said, after ordering the two disgraced teenagers to the showers, her composed voice the very essence of grace. "My son can be an immature, ribald, migraine-inducing piece of shit ex-Navy man sometimes."


End file.
